slow ride
by Phantomphaeton
Summary: Astrid takes Toothless for a spin.


Toothless sleeps on a bed of rock by the window in Hiccup's room. Astrid's been in there a few times, both with and without Stoick's knowledge. Today, Toothless is restless, sticking his nose into every crevice he can fit it into. The room is in shambles when she walks in.

"Toothless, what did you do?" she asks.

Toothless' eyes are big and confused. He sniffs at her jacket, her hair, her hands. She rubs his nose soothingly.

"Calm down," she says. "Come on. Help me get this place cleaned up."

Toothless sits back as Astrid returns the books to the shelf and sets about turning the bed back over. Toothless doesn't help much, but he gathers his tail so it's won't knock anything over again and it's the thought that counts. To tell the truth, she's grateful that he's dismantled the room, because she's trying to put this off for as long as she can. She dusts every corner and wipes every surface with the sort of precision and care that she doesn't show to her own property, and Toothless watches her with mild interest, settling to follow her around and play with her braid every now and again.

But Hiccup was never really a slob, and the room is clean faster than she would have liked it to be, and now she's got no way of putting it off now.

"Alrighty, then," she says. "Why don't we go get some air?"

Toothless follows her down the stairs and out the door. She could just climb up on his back and fly out of Berk, but she wants to walk to the village limits first because yes, she is nervous.

Toothless nudges her. She pats his head. "It's just you and me today," she tells him. "Hiccup is with his dad and I'm gonna be flying you."

He skips ahead of her, happy to be out and about, and she sighs when he's got his back to her because she's not entirely sure she can do this.

He is waiting for her by the edge of the forest, and she's got zero clues how to work that weird gear on his side pedal, but Hiccup's cheat sheet is burning in her pocket and her promise to him this morning is burning in her mind.

"He'll go as fast as he likes unless you tell him otherwise," Hiccup had told her. "So I guess that one's up to you. I've written up a cheat sheet for the gear…here you go. There's a cord attached to the front of his saddle, just hook yourself up to that thing so you don't fall off. The saddle's adjustable so don't sweat it if it feels a little weird, just give that back gear a kick and it'll slide into place. And I've written you step by step instructions so you don't get confused about the gears. Are you sure you're cool with this?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," she had flatly lied. "I mean…how hard can it be, right? It's just a…Night Fury."

And her totally fake nervous, shaky laugh made Hiccup raise a brow. She relaxed her face a little.

"Really," she said. "We'll be fine. Go. Do…chief training stuff. Don't keep your dad waiting."

And here she is at the edge of the forest with aforementioned Night Fury circling her.

"Toothless," she calls.

He is now dancing in the wind.

"Toothless, come here."

He appears to be whistling.

"Hey look, it's Hiccup!" she points at the approaching figure. Toothless pauses and looks around hopefully. But it's only Ruffnut with a handful of berries in her palm. She smirks at the sight of them.

"You're actually gonna do it, then," Ruffnut says, holding her hand out and letting Toothless lap up the berries quickly. She pats his nose.

"I told you I would," Astrid says.

"I didn't think you were serious," Ruffnut says. "What did he say?"

"He has complete faith in me," Astrid says glumly.

"Why so blue? You said that was a good thing."

"It is a good thing. But…how am I supposed to fly this guy? I mean—I've never ridden him without Hiccup."

"Why'd you bother, then?"

"Because Toothless is important to Hiccup," Astrid says. "And Hiccup is important to _me_. Therefore Toothless is important to me. If Hiccup and I are gonna be okay together, then this is how I set it in stone. He needs to know that I fit into _every_ aspect of his life. Including the scaly black plasma spitting aspect."

Ruffnut just stares at her. "So…why aren't you in the air yet?"

"Because…well…"

"You don't know how to work the gears, do you?"

"Not a clue," Astrid says. "It might as well be in a different language."

"Well you might wanna figure it out fast. The meeting's moving pretty quick and Hiccup'll be mighty disappointed if his lady love can't even get his best friend into the air."

Astrid climbs onto the saddle with some difficulty. Toothless shifts his weight around, squirming, trying to adjust to this new weight. Astrid winces as she settles into the seat.

"Where's…where's that seat adjuster? Here," she feels around until her fingers find the cold handle behind the saddle. She gets a firm grip on it and pulls. "Ahhh!" she yelps as the seat cranks forward until her face is splat on the back of Toothless' neck. Ruffnut bursts into laughter.

"Yeah, you're doing great. Keep at it and I'm sure you'll be walking down the aisle in no time."

And Ruffnut is laughing the whole way out of Astrid's line of vision. Toothless can't possibly know what it is that's so funny, but he's decided to laugh anyways, and the rumble beneath his scales doesn't exactly comfort Astrid. She blows her bangs out of her face and pulls the handle again, and finally adjusts the seat into a doable position.

"Okay, buddy," she says. "We can do this. We can _so_ do this. How the hell do we do this?" And she stares confusedly at the cheat sheet in her hands. "Okay. Step One: hook up the safety cord."

She feels around the saddle before she unearths the cord from underneath it. She hooks it into the saddle carefully. It makes a satisfying 'click' and she smiles. "Step Two: Keep feet in the pedals."

She slides her feet one by one into either saddle. Toothless is bouncing lightly now, turning his head back and watching her. "Yeah, yeah," she says. "In a minute. Step Three: Pump back left pedal ONCE. Okay, left pedal. Here we go."

And she tilts the pedal back a single time. Toothless flies.

It's not a gentle ascension. It's like a spear fresh out of a crossbow aiming straight for the sky. Astrid can feel her lips flapping in the wind and she'd like to check the cheat sheet but she's scared that if she pulls it out she'll lose it to the wind.

"Toothless," she calls. "Slow DOWN!"

But he only goes faster, and despite the wind singing in her ears she swears she can hear him laugh. She tilts the pedal back again, praying that it doesn't only make them go faster, and Toothless has to slow down abruptly, which throws her forward. The cord holds firm and she's got a grip on his jaw. The wind is singing in her ears again, but this time they're descending. Fast.

"Toothless—just—stay—toothless," she says as she tries to get a grip through his saliva.

His mouth is wide open and he's screaming at the top of his lungs. Flecks of spittle fly into her face as she reaches blindly for a grip on the saddle. Finally, her fingers snake around the leather grip and she climbs back on board. She tilts the pedal a third time and he's still, suspending them both in the air.

"Okay," she is panting and almost panicking but no way is she going to do that now. She looks around to see if anyone is watching, but there's not one around in the air with them today. "Okay, we're good? We're good. Let's…not try that again."

Toothless cranes his neck to get a good look at her. She pats his head.

"We're fine, big guy," she says. "We can do this. See? We're doing fine right now. We just need to keep up like this for a few minutes and then we're home free. So…let's just take it slow from now on, okay? Nice and slow."

And Toothless moves forward at a pace she thinks she can handle, so she stops to pull out the sheet. "Step Four: Pump the left pedal back to the fourth crank to make turns. Circle the forest twice. Okay, Toothless, let's get back to the tree line."

Toothless doesn't stay too close to the trees. Astrid has a hard time figuring out if they're even in the right area what with all the clouds he's decided to fly above. But he seems to know what he's doing, and Astrid has elected to believe that he's on the right track, considering that he's the _only_ one of them who knows what he's doing. He pauses at last after a while, and the cold is tingling Astrid's exposed skin.

"I should have brought a coat, huh, buddy?" she pats his side. "You're doing really well. Let's move on to the next one so we can get home. How'd you feel about some nice hot yak stew?" Toothless grumbles unintelligibly, and she pulls out the sheet. "Step Five: Pump the left pedal forward once to slow down. Alright, Toothless, I think it's time to go home now."

Toothless probably has smoother landings mastered, but Astrid's guessing he's still cut up about their near death in the air earlier, because he lands with unusual force and sends her flying into a pile of hay. He tugs at the cord binding them together. She unhooks it.

"We did good," she says, rubbing his nose. "We did awesome. Please don't tell Hiccup I almost killed you."

And Toothless just walks alongside her to the Great Hall. The doors are open and it's nearly empty. Hiccup is seated by the fire, stretched out and rubbing his eyes. Toothless sprints towards him, licking him excessively. Hiccup laughs.

"Hey bud," he says, scratching beneath his neck fondly. "Am I glad to see you. Tell me you two had a better day than I did."

Astrid watches Toothless sit on his hind legs and move his front legs about animatedly. His mouth opens and closes but nothing clear is coming out. Just grumbles and long, drawn out sounds, and Astrid winces because he's definitely got a lot to say about their day and she prays to the gods that these two don't have some weird shared language figured out because she's not exactly interested in sharing the details with Hiccup.

But Hiccup just laughs. "I guess you had fun then, huh? I hope he wasn't too much trouble, he doesn't usually work well with anyone else."

"No," Astrid says, waving it off. "He was a treat. We did great together. Didn't we, big guy?"

She holds her hand out to him and he hesitates a full three seconds before he ducks his nose under her palm, which he does for barely a moment before he's cowering behind Hiccup again.

"Oh, well," Hiccup chuckles. "I didn't think he was so shy around the ladies."

"Yeah…shy one," Astrid smiles, but it feels more like a grimace.

"I'm glad it worked out," Hiccup says. "How were the gears? Too confusing? I was worried you might have trouble with them. Fishlegs couldn't understand them when he took Toothless out."

"Naw, they were fine," she says. "Had a few…bumps in the road but I figured it out."

"Well, we'll smooth those bumps out later," Hiccup says. "You two have plenty of time to get used to each other. I'm glad we could work this out."

"Totally," Astrid agrees as she takes Hiccup's extended hand. Toothless slides his head beneath Hiccup's other arm and their eyes meet. They look away quickly.

_-end- _


End file.
